Tuesday, July 17, 2007

So it is Saturday night and you are bored with the same old clubs. Want to try something new?

Here is a short list of my favorite cool SL places to go and hang out:

Blue Noise: you will be greeted at the gate by the jackel-headed god Anubis in this Ancient Egyptian-themed club managed by the lovely Rhiannon. Watch beautiful female and male dancers strip, play the sploder, compete in "best of" contests for cash prizes, soak and get your back washed in the dance floor spa, make song requests of the DJs, or ask for the VIP treatment from one of the lovely and talented escorts.

Lotus Moon: An Asian-themed club/casino owned by Partial and Lisette. Great dancers, contests, camping pads, a sploder, and a cash giveaway that throws out random dollars to anyone in the club. Check out the special locations upstairs where you can get a private dance from one of the dancers or escorts.

Mystic's Cabaret Gentleman's Club: Best thing about Mystic's place are the contests. Every night is something new with cash prizes. Also lots of slow and sexy dance balls. Lots of pretty dancers, a sploder and dancing camping pads as well.

Ally B's: Not only does Ally offer all the amenities of the usual nightclubs at her Egyptian decor club, but Tuesdays are for Ladies Only! With an all male dancer lineup of studly guys! Not to be missed! Also has BDSM rooms for those so inclined.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Got a Fortune Cookie today that read:"THE GREATEST PLEASURE IN LIFE IS DOING WHAT PEOPLE SAY YOU CANNOT DO" I immediately taped it to my computer.

It is true. For example, here are several "you cannots" that I know to be false.

1. You can't love more than one man (or woman). Why? Most of us have enough love for multiple children, at least 2 parents, assorted siblings, many many friends. Why, if no other love is limited, do we assume that romantic (or erotic) love must be limited to one significant other? What is limited is not our love, but our time. And in love we want all the time and attention of our partners. We behave in love like toddlers who say: "Mine, all mine!" Maybe we don't need to limit our love . . . maybe we just need to share our toys better.

2. You can't make love work long distance. That may have been true a century ago when the fastest communication was the mail train and it took months. But today we have the Internet, IMs, cellphones that reach around the globe, text messaging, email, . . . and Second Life. Nine tenths of sex takes place in the mind, the imagination. If you can communicate you can have a romance. And it can be very good. Trust me on this one, I know.

3. He can't (or wouldn't want to) look at other women if he really loves me. Bullshit. Even if you only ever eat at home who says you can't read the menu of the fine restaurant you pass on the street? If your man is looking at other women all that says is that he has a healthy appetite. Ask him what he likes. maybe play out some of those fantasies that are turning his head. Talk about it and it will enrich your own sex life, clamp down on it and all you have is a man who feels guilty for a normal sexuality and who can't talk to the one person (you) he should be able to trust. I fear the day my man stops looking at other women--that is the day he is no longer interested in sex and that means he isn't looking at me either.

Friday, July 6, 2007

The first thing everyone does in SL is build an avatar. A persona. You, but not you. The six-million-dollar version of you: better, faster, stronger. . . also younger and prettier. All the things that you would like to be. With all the attitude and sexuality you want to display. And why not? This is a game, what is wrong with having attractive pieces. Some of us go farther. Non-humans, gender-shifting, multiple avatars and multiple persona stories. SL is all about role-playing. We can do things we'd never be able to do in real life. Live in the storylines of our fandoms. Participate in wanton sex, slave and master games, consensual violence, BDSM. Buy and sell anything, including not just our bodies, but our souls in some ways.

SL gives us the opportunity to wear complicated masks. To construct stories, behind which we are safe to escape from the complications of RL. But when does that line between RL and SL blur? When you have a mask, no one can see your real face. Or can they?

Being able to operate behind a mask gives us all a freedom that is heady and addictive. You can now be the bad-ass dude or the sexy lady. But when we act out sex and suddenly find we are falling in love, are we falling for the person or the persona? There are, in SL, a gazillion opportunities to make connections, to experience romance that we may be missing or wanting in our RLs. What happens when the RL person behind the mask starts to fall, to have real internal emotional attachment to another SL persona?

Those who say it is just an SL effect, will tell you that the emotions you are feeling are also a fantasy. You are in love in the same way anyone might have crush on an unreachable object of affection. Whether you go with it or let it go, these people tell you it will pass. And that is one way to deal with the emotions you are feeling.

But for some of us the SL persona is not too far removed from the RL persona. And the emotions, the attraction that turns to love is very real. The biological responses are all there . . . why not the psychological ones?

The irony here is that love works exactly the same in SL as it does in RL:

You meet someone. You find them physically attractive.

You flirt. You talk (most people don't realize that the largest sex organ is the brain--that conversation, flirtatious conversation, is more conducive to positive sexual experience than all the right moves in the world. This goes double in a virtual world where encounters are based, not on touch, but on narrative).

You date (in the RL world that tends to happen over the course of weeks or months, the ease of access in SL allows that to happen over hours and days).

You get even closer and have sex (in RL this takes while as we generally need to build up huge level of trust or too much alcohol, in SL however this might happen your very meeting).

You make each other feel good. On a regular basis.

You decide you can bottle and keep that feeling by tying the other person to you permanently (in RL this is marriage, in SL . . . well, people have ceremonies, but permanence ia even more ambiguousin SL)

Here is the problem. While each of us knows exactly what we are feeling, we can never--in SL or RL--know what is going on in someone else's head. Never. We can only trust in the honesty of our lovers.

I know of several RL couples who play in SL. But not with each other. One or the other partner has an SL marriage/partnership/sexual relationship with someone (or more than one) else. In the best cases all parties know and agree to allow it. are honest with each other. In some cases--and these are the ones where someone is bound to get hurt--one partner has backed off to give the other freedom to experience SL love, an SL relationship. Is that love real? I don't know, it may depend on how you define real. Love is a feeling. If you feel love it is real enough. If you love more than one person and you can't be upfront about it, if there isn't an honest attempt to make all the relationships work, you will hurt someone and likely be hurt yourself.

Love, in any reality, is based on trust and honesty. But when you open yourself up and tell honest truths, you always run the risk of being smacked down. When someone you trust is honest with you it can hurt, too. Love runs the risk of hurt because love is worth it--wherever you find it. The risk and the working through are what separates real love, wherever you find it, from shallow fantasy sexual romances.

So, yeah, I believe up-front, sometimes painful honesty. Pretty much all the time.